


As wild vines about a tree

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pining, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha says her name; Margaret’s smile is just the same, just, when she says, “Hello,” like it’s something miraculous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As wild vines about a tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [what_alchemy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/gifts).



It bothers her that she doesn’t recognize the handwriting. She’s seen it enough, on countless letters, notes, cards: the slanted peaks of the _M_ , the way the _t_ and _h_ slide sloppily into one another. But when she picks up the envelope, she tries at first to place it with one of the few who write her still, and the return address is only that – The Laurels, Cobham, she has done well – and so she doesn’t realize until she slices the envelope open and flips the letter to the last page to see:

_Always yours,_   
_Margaret_

Later, she will look more closely, see the hint of a quiver in the sentence capitals, the way _Hudson_ is written carefully, not dashed off like _Sissons_ always was, a quick slither of _S_ es. They have both changed.

In that moment, though, she says, “Oh,” aloud to her sitting room and steadies one hand on the back of her armchair. The paper creases a little in her fingertips, her grip gone unexpectedly tight. 

It isn’t much, the letter: careful and polite, with condolences and apologies for their lateness and with the sort of inconsequential life details you might exchange with a long-former colleague when you encounter each other doing the shopping. Professor of Literature; now retired; botany club; nieces and nephews; lovely house, lovely garden. And at the end: _Would so love to see you._ And _up to London often._ And finally _Please do say yes._

She gives her address again, but not a telephone number, and Martha is oddly relieved. It wouldn’t be right, to hear her voice for the first time again across satellite waves.

She writes back: _yes_ and _March the 15th_ and _221a Baker Street._

++

It’s four minutes after two when the doorbell goes. She’d had it installed last year; getting too hard to hear the knocker these days. For the first two weeks, she hadn’t ever known what sound it might make next – Sherlock was in an electronic experimentation phase – but now it played a rather tinny version of the triumphal march from Aida, the tune that had stuck when Sherlock flitted to a new experiment. 

The sun is shining off the glassy puddles on the street when she opens the door, and for a moment she can’t make out Margaret’s face from under her hat, until Margaret takes a faltering step forward and tilts her chin up. 

She looks nothing and everything like herself: she has the same creases Martha sees in the mirror every day, and Martha realizes quite suddenly that, excepting her sister, Margaret is the only person she still knows who might remember her face when it wasn’t lined and shadowed, when it was full and soft and pink with pleasure and youth. 

Martha says her name; Margaret’s smile is just the same, just, when she says, “ _Hello_ ,” like it’s something miraculous. 

A beat; two; three; then the wind whips around their legs and into the hallway, and – “Oh, come in, come in.” She does, and starts to unbutton her coat; Martha stands and looks at her, hands empty and useless until she can take the coat from her.

Margaret’s hat is felt, and artfully crumpled on one side, and just the same emerald as the frock she wore when standing up next to Martha in the church. It suits her, still, though the short bits of hair that curl out from under the brim are more white than auburn. 

Martha’s helping her slip out of her coat, arms held up to hold the collar – she’s so tall, still, a head above Martha, and still solidly broad-shouldered and –hipped – when Sherlock bellows down the staircase.

“Send her up, Mrs Hudson.”

“What?” Martha squawks back, and Sherlock yells back, exasperation tinging his voice, “The _client._ ” 

“She’s not –” Martha starts, but Sherlock’s already banging down the stairs, talking a bit too quickly.

“She’s here to consult on a matter of love, it’s obvious; she’s been pacing the pavement for the last quarter hour, something rather urgent by the look of her shoes, new, looking to impress, and the way she’s crumpled the brim of her hat a bit with nerves and –”

Sherlock stops two steps from the bottom; John, clattering behind him, nearly falls into him. Martha touches Margaret’s shoulder, where her coat has slipped down; her chin is tucked in, and it’s just like when they were girls and she was being teased, her chin tucked down and a flush creeping up the back of her neck. 

“Sherlock,” Martha says, and Sherlock sniffs. 

“Yes, well,” he says, and then, “Never mind, John,” as though the whole thing had been John’s flight of fancy, and he turns on his heel and brushes past John on his way up. John watches Sherlock go – as he always does – before turning back to peer at Martha, brow furrowed. 

“Good afternoon, John,” Martha says, firmly, and pushes Margaret’s shoulder forward a bit to guide her toward the ground floor flat. Margaret steps forward, clearly bemused, and doesn’t slip out of her coat properly until Martha’s shut the door the 221a behind them.

Martha bustles it into the cupboard. “Don’t mind my lodgers; they’re foolish boys,” she says, and holds out her hand for Margaret’s hat, which she’s taken off but wrings between her hands.

Margaret reaches out, but instead of handing Martha the hat, she grasps her fingers and pulls her closer and presses her mouth over hers. Her hand awkwardly clutches Martha’s last knuckles; her mouth is dry and not quite square on Martha’s mouth; there’s ten inches of space between them everywhere but their mouths, their noses, their foreheads. 

When she pulls away, her breath beats against Martha’s mouth in hard, short pants, like she’s been running. “I’m sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t let go of Martha’s fingertips. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t leave without telling you, but I didn’t mean for it to be so –” She sucks in her lower lip and looks away; it’s so familiar, it’s like she’s worrying over exams again, or pouring Martha a glass of water when she’s had too much to drink.

Martha lifts her hand, brings Margaret’s clutching fingertips to her mouth, presses a kiss across their knuckles. “I think –” she says, “I think we’ll need tea.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's [Sonnet 29.](http://www3.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literature/elizabethbarrettbrowning/poems/sonnetsfromtheportuguese/ithinkoftheemythoughtsdotwineandbud.html)
>
>> I think of thee!---my thoughts do twine and bud  
> About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,  
> Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see  
> Except the straggling green which hides the wood.


End file.
